Audio: Rick Perry flirts with secession at tea-party presser

posted at 7:40 pm on April 15, 2009 by Allahpundit

I snarked yesterday that the left would get hysterical and treat his statement on the Tenth Amendment as a veiled call for secession, so I’m obliged to eat my words today. Simply awful, whether as a convenient distraction for the media from the tea parties or as a brush for them to tar the protests as motivated by crackpot neo-confederate sentiments. Even Drudge, who’s obviously sympathetic to the rallies, is leading with the story right now. In the red scare font, no less.

Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters’ questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

He said when Texas entered the union in 1845 it was with the understanding it could pull out. However, according to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Texas negotiated the power to divide into four additional states at some point if it wanted to but not the right to secede.

Texas did secede in 1861, but the North’s victory in the Civil War put an end to that.

What a treat to see some on the right pulling the same whiny, anti-democratic crap that the left pulled under Bush. I can only assume this means that I was wrong about Perry’s 2012 aspirations and that he’s not planning to run, as the thought of a secessionist presidential candidate would be rather highly nuanced indeed. Exit question: Chuck Norris for Texas president?

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For all of you aggitating for Texas and the red states to split off from the United States of America, you should first contemplate who provides the trough from which certain red states suckle. See this report from 2004. It shows that seven of the top ten states that received more money from the Federal Government then they contributed were “Red States”. In direct opposition to most of the sentiments expressed by those here, the top ten states that contributed more to the Federal Gov’t then they received all voted for Obama in 2004. Oh my gawd, could it be that the Red staters that value “self-sufficiency” are actually being propped up by those selfish Blue Staters? Shocker! Here is a link to the backup data for this which was updated to 2005 by the Tax Foundation.

Yes, and who was president and who controlled Congress until 2006?
Look for this spending to dramatically shift to the blue states. I bet the data from 2006 on will support this. When socialism rears it’s ugly head then it must be cut off before it starts eating it’s own.

Your links to data suck; they’re from sites I’ve never heard of and even “updated” to 2005, are still out of date.

The South and the Heartland (a.k.a. Red States) aren’t Quebec or Scotland–
The saying is “The South shall rise again” and we have.
If there’s a Civil War II, we’ll win it this time! (Those Yankees are soft now and the only reason they won the War of Northern Aggression was because they had modern manufacturing and the South didn’t.)
Red States don’t suck off the Blue States trough–you’ve got it backwards!
The North and the Coasts are sucking off our generous teat!
Trust me, if TX is forced to secede, we wouldn’t miss the East & Left Coast elites one little bit! (We hardly think of them now…)

Texas is approximately 270,000 sq. miles. I think we could let a few Yankees in…as long as they went through the proper immigration channels. :)
FishFearMe on April 16, 2009 at 12:36 PM

Totally agree with the proper channels, but most important you have to be one of those right wing nuts, with a U-Haul full of automatic weapons, body armor, a few heat-seeking missiles and if possible a M1 Abrams Tank. Don’t worry about ammo. Thanks to the good people of the state of Georgia we got a great supply.

I agree, but I’d be wary. I’d take Ron Paul in a heartbeat over Schwarzenegger, too. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have stances which don’t cause me serious concern.

MadisonConservative on April 16, 2009 at 4:38 PM

As I stated a couple of times in this thread, Perry has many faults, but this is not one of them.
Trans-Texas Corridor
Flipping on border enforcement
Mandatory HPV inoculation for girls
Those are just a few.

c_f, we got him to back down on the HPV innoculation and the Trans-TX Corridor has gone nowhere, too.
As for the border, well, he’s not going to have much choice about that either because Mexico’s drug war will try and move into TX or because Ogabe will pass his immigration bill, let ‘em all in and cancel the borders.
(This trip to Me-hi-co and Latin America he’s taking should be interesting…)

radiofreevillage,
We have an express lane for execution in Texas and would be more than happy to put your smart-ass at the front on that line!!

try again later on April 16, 2009 at 8:17 AM

I know that you love to kill people. I’m not sure what you attempted to achieve by saying that to me. Are you a bad ass? Not really, people in Afghanistan and other sh*tholes are even more cruel and disgusting. Are you a pig? Yes. But that’s not particularly impressive.

c_f, we got him to back down on the HPV innoculation and the Trans-TX Corridor has gone nowhere, too.
As for the border, well, he’s not going to have much choice about that either because Mexico’s drug war will try and move into TX or because Ogabe will pass his immigration bill, let ‘em all in and cancel the borders.
(This trip to Me-hi-co and Latin America he’s taking should be interesting…)

Jenfidel on April 16, 2009 at 5:09 PM

Yes, the HPV inoculation was the one that really disturbed me the most. As for the border, what really upset me about Perry was how he campaigned in 2006 as a strict enforcer (remember the tv commercial with him standing, overlooking the Rio Grande with a concerned but determined look?) of the border. Once elected, he backpedaled like he was a totally different person.
I just don’t see what keeps a politician from taking a strong stance on the border enforcement and sticking with it. It seems it would political gold, especially here in Texas.

Sounds as if any state could successfully secede, Texas would be that state. Too soon for that though. Let’s see what we can do with the next 4 years. Then we’ll speak of this again? Oh…and this thread has gone on for nearly a 24 hour period. That in itself says a lot about this topic, and a lot more about how conservatives feel about the “I won, so there” technique of this administration.

What I attempted to achieve by saying that to you is precisely what you deserve after that smart ass remark about Texas just execute mentally retarded people. So you don’t care for Texas? Who care! There No Call for that b/s. Before you open that mouth to anyone that’s not particularly impressive to you. Perhaps you should take a good look at yourself!

The express lane invitation still strand, after all we just execute mentally retarded people. You know, people like You!

What’s wrong with succession?? What are people suppose to do?? Sink with the rest of the nation??? If Washington wants to tie itself to a rock and jump in the ocean,, are we suppose to drown with it???
Wouldn’t mind moving to Texas!

Rick Perry did not belong at the tea parties. Perry is part of the problem. Perry’s only motivation at saying these idiotic things was to get self promotion. This guy is a total hack.

-Texas resident

paulsur on April 16, 2009 at 11:16 PM

Rick Perry has been wrong on many things in the past. Trans-Texas Corridor and border enforcement to name two.
However, Rick Perry is 100% correct on the 10th Amendment affirmation and has the respect and support of millions of Texans.
-Also a Texas resident.

.
You forget that at least 47% of the population of this country today has zero representation in the federal government. No house, senate, or executive power. The democrats control with, what amounts to, a super majority in both houses and the president. And this is not the democrat party we used to know, but a new extremely left social democrat one.
.
And some of conservatives who live in states like California have no local or state representation either. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have had no voice in politics in many many many years.

You forget that at least 47% of the population of this country today has zero representation in the federal government. No house, senate, or executive power. The democrats control with, what amounts to, a super majority in both houses and the president. And this is not the democrat party we used to know, but a new extremely left social democrat one.
.
And some of conservatives who live in states like California have no local or state representation either. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have had no voice in politics in many many many years.

Funny, when republicans had it all, democrats where in the same boat, with little to no representation.

An actually, since in 2000 when Bush did not get a majority of the vote, democrats had less representation than what actually came out and voted.

This is the problem with todays government and the people, we do not hold both parties to the same standards, we hold our own to oh well they can do that, but when the other side does the same thing we scream bloody murder.

America will never get thier asses in gear and the government will never be representatives of the people until we hold them all to the same standards, for America and not for the party.

And we do remember them. For those that do not know, the Republic of Texas still exist. It existed before becoming a state by treaty and again after the civil war when it successfully seceed, or was booted out of the United States, depending on how you look at it. That is the history. If the Republic of the Untied States becomes a Democratic socilist state, then Texas will have a decision to make,in a democratic process. Texas is unique in that it has that ability. It is a state by treaty and treaties can be broken, It is self sustaining in that it has its own power grid, its own law enforement; The Texas Rangers, oil and the ability to refine it, and a viable economy that has fair far better than the rest of the nation.